In less than 10 days, countries from around the planet will come together in New York for the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit. I look forward to representing the Pacific Community (SPC) at this important event, and throughout “Action Week” during the upcoming UN General Assembly.

Cameron Diver

The interconnections and synergies between major issues of global concern and the key role multilateralism and international cooperation can play in helping tackle these challenges are illustrated by the agenda of the week from 23 to 27 September. Underpinned by the Sustainable Development Goals, each of the high-level summits will focus on commitments to accelerate action across climate change, enhance efforts to secure healthy, peaceful and prosperous lives for all, mobilise sufficient financing to realise the 2030 Agenda and address the specific issues and vulnerabilities of small island developing states.

The week of summits kicks off with a focus on climate action. And this is, in my mind, highly appropriate. The multiplier effect of climate change undermines our efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals, it increases the challenges of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, it intensifies competition and the potential for conflict around natural resources and it poses the single greatest existential threat to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the globe. From where I stand, the science on climate change is clear. To take only these examples, the IPCC Special Reports on the impacts of global warming of 1.5° above pre-industrial levels and climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems provide us with the most robust, high quality evidence base to understand the significant negative impact climate change is already having on our natural environment, on the wellbeing of people, ecosystems, flora and fauna and the massive and potentially irreversible consequences of inaction. As regards our ocean, the upcoming Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is likely to confirm what the islands of the Blue Pacific continent, and others whose cultures, traditions and livelihoods are deeply attached to the ocean, have already sensed: the climate crisis is a real and present threat to ocean and coastal ecosystems and the human communities that depend on them.

The stakes are high, but where there is a threat there is also an opportunity. If we act now, there is still have time effectively to tackle the climate crisis! To put it simply: ambition without action is insufficient and simply not an option. SPC is committed to working with our Member States, international and regional partners to translate climate ambition into tangible climate action, for both mitigation and adaptation. The benefits could be huge, with the Global Commission on Adaptation estimating that investing $1.8 trillion in climate adaptation globally in just five areas from 2020 to 2030 could generate $7.1 trillion in total net benefits. We are also convinced that we must collectively harness the synergies between, for example, climate and the ocean, biodiversity, health, security, economic development, food systems, land use, gender and many other development areas to fully exploit the potential of the SDGs and ensure that future pathways to sustainable development are integrated, inclusive, nature-friendly, climate-informed and resilient. SPC is already implementing this approach with its Members and partners. One illustration is our EU funded PROTEGE project, whose intended outcomes include a transition to sustainable integrated agriculture and sound forestry resource management; sustainable fisheries and aquaculture management that is integrated in and adapted to island economies; sustainable integrated water resource management; and invasive alien species control, all against a backdrop of climate-change hazards that require ecosystem and biodiversity protection, resilience and restoration.

As was recently remarked to me at the Green Climate Fund Global Programming Conference in Korea: “we already know what we must do. We need to stop talking and start doing”. It is my sincere hope that “Action Week” in New York will indeed be a turning point for “doing”; a catalyst for firm, measurable commitments to tangible actions that match the level of ambition already expressed to address the climate crisis and the multiple development challenges that remain as we approach the final decade of the 2030 Agenda. If we do not translate ambition into action, we will fail ourselves, we will fail future generations and we will fail our planet. If, however, we take up the challenge and take sustained, coordinated and integrated action, we can win the battle against climate change, create new and innovative opportunities for development, deliver on the promise of the Global Goals and trace a positive pathway to new era of resilient and sustainable development. High hopes indeed…

At his speech at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) summit in Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised South-South cooperation and technology solutions, but issues of land ownership dog the ongoing negotiations.

As the second week of the UNCCD Conference of Parties (COP) kicked off in Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted South-South cooperation and issues of land degradation.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the high level segment, he said that it was increasingly accepted that climate change impacts were leading to a loss of land, plants and animal species, and that it was causing, “land degradation of various kinds (including) rise of sea levels, wave action, and erratic rainfall and storms”.

All of these issues have a significant impact on India, and other developing countries, and as such, the Prime Minister advocated, “greater South-South cooperation in addressing climate change, biodiversity and land degradation.”

He said India would act both internally and externally on this. Domestically, he said that India was increasing its commitment to restore 21 million hectares of land by 2030 to 26 million hectares, an increase of 5 million hectares. The co-benefit of this would be that it would help create a carbon sink for 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon through increased tree cover.

On external action, he said that India was, “happy to help other friendly countries cost-effective satellite and space technologies,” and that it would be creating a Centre for Excellence at the Indian Council for Forestry Research and Education in Dehradun to promote South-South cooperation, where other countries could access technology and training.

Hard questions

Nevertheless, this avoids some of the hard questions that have been dogging the UNCCD COP. Who owns the land? Who is responsible when the land is no longer able to support a livelihood, and a farmer is forced to migrate?

These are not questions anyone thought about when they launched the UNCCD 25 years ago. But since degradation of land due to a variety of reasons precedes desertification, these questions are increasingly worrying policymakers, especially from developing countries. At the ongoing New Delhi summit, the issues have come to the fore, and have divided governments along the lines of developed and developing nations, a process familiar to observers of UN climate negotiations.

Despite Narendra Modi’s speech at the high level segment, these issues remained unresolved, with bureaucrats awaiting instructions from the 100-odd ministers gathered at the Indian capital.

The NGOs who work on farming issues are clear that land degradation cannot be halted unless farmers around the world have guaranteed rights over the land on which they grow food for everyone. This may sound like a no-brainer, but estimates show that globally only around 12% of all farmers can claim legal rights over the land they till. To this, experts would like to add the land held in various forms of community ownership, sometimes by indigenous communities. But few countries have strong laws to protect such ownership.

In the first week of the New Delhi summit, developing country governments have wanted this issue of land tenure being discussed at the UNCCD forum, and developed countries – led by the US delegation – have opposed the inclusion. The industrialised countries say it is an issue of different laws in different countries, and discussing it in the UN is not going to help.

Land tenure

But, with land degradation being inextricably tied up with climate change and biodiversity, the urgency of the situation may force UNCCD to discuss land tenure in this and future meetings, and to come up with possible solutions.

The solutions are not always as straightforward as they may seem, warned UNCCD chief scientist Baron Orr in a conversation with thethirdpole.net. Think of what a farmer – especially a smallholder farmer – is likely to do if offered a high price for land. Most of them are likely to sell, as evidenced by the mushrooming malls, offices and homes all around the current summit venue, which was all farmland just about a decade ago. And what happens to our food supply if this replicated globally?

Land tenure is important to halt degradation because people naturally provide better protection to land they own. But it is not enough. A farmer faced with competitors using chemical fertilisers and pesticides is not going to move to organic farming just because that is better for the soil.

Most farmers cannot afford to do that. They need help, as was seen in India when the state of Sikkim pledged to do only organic farming. Sikkim is a relatively small state – replicating that kind of help on a global or even national scale may need far more money than is available for the purpose, as Orr pointed out.

Farmers being forced to migrate because their farms can no longer support them due to land degradation and climate change is the hottest potato of them all. Developed countries are united in opposing this major “push” factor in migration, insisting that people migrate only due to “pull” factors such as better economic opportunities. Developing countries, especially those from the Sahel belt stretching from the western to the eastern coast of Africa, point to numerous instances where farmers are forced off land gone barren, and insist on this issue being discussed by UNCCD.

Former UNCCD chief Monique Barbut has said almost all Africans trying to move to Europe are doing so due to land degradation and drought. Without putting it in words that strong, current UNCCD chief Ibrahim Thiaw has backed the inclusion of migration in the conference agenda.

As host government and conference president, India may have to use all its diplomatic skills if this knot is to be untied during this summit – an especially tricky manoeuvre because India has consistently refused to accept that immigrants from Bangladesh are entering this country because their farms can no longer support them.

And it is not just migration across countries. At a meeting organised on the sidelines of the summit by local government organisation ICLEI, mayor after mayor got up to say farmers are coming into their cities in increasing numbers due to land degradation and climate change, but they have no budget to provide any housing, water, electricity, roads or any form of livelihood to these millions of immigrants.

Still, developed country delegations insist UNCCD is not the right forum to discuss migration. What all 196 governments and the European Union agree upon in the next day or two remains to be seen.

Human efforts

Prakash Javadekar, India’s Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and the conference president, had said at the opening, “If human actions have created the problems of climate change, land degradation and biodiversity loss, it is the strong intent, technology and intellect that will make (the) difference. It is human efforts that will undo the damage and improve the habitats. We meet here now to ensure that this happens.” This foreshadowed what the Prime Minister said today.

He pointed out that 122 countries, among them Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Russia and South Africa, which are among the largest and most populous nations on earth, “have agreed to make the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving land degradation neutrality a national target.”

Thiaw drew attention to the warnings sounded by recent scientific assessments and the growing public alarm at the frequency of weather-related disasters such as drought, forest fires, flash floods and soil loss. He urged delegates to be mindful of the opportunities for change that are opening up, and take action. The response of governments from developed countries will decide how useful the current summit will be.

The world is in trouble otherwise. The current pace of land transformation is putting a million species at risk of extinction. One in four hectares of this converted land is no longer usable due to unsustainable land management practices. These trends have put the well-being of 3.2 billion people around the world at risk. In tandem with climate change, this may force up to 700 million people to migrate by 2050.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/india-promotes-south-south-cooperation-key-questions-unaddressed/feed/0World leaders call for global action to restore degraded landhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/world-leaders-call-global-action-restore-degraded-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=world-leaders-call-global-action-restore-degraded-land
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/world-leaders-call-global-action-restore-degraded-land/#respondMon, 09 Sep 2019 23:33:01 +0000UNCCD Press Releasehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163183Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on the international community to set up a global water action agenda as the central theme to achieve land degradation neutrality. He announced that India will restore an additional 5 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, raising the land to be restored in India to 26 million hectares. […]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on the international community to set up a global water action agenda as the central theme to achieve land degradation neutrality. He announced that India will restore an additional 5 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, raising the land to be restored in India to 26 million hectares.

Modi made the announcement when he opened the ministerial segment of the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification that opened in New Delhi, India, a week ago.

The restoration is part of India’s commitment to achieve land degradation neutrality, a flagship initiative under the UNCCD. To date, 122 of the 170 countries affected by land degradation have committed to achieve land degradation neutrality.

India’s Initiative complements and strengthens two other previous initiatives, namely, the Changwon Initiative of the Republic of Korea and the Ankara Initiative of Turkey, also launched at previous COPs.

Prakash Javadekar, India’s Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the current COP14 President, also announced that the Delhi Declaration will be adopted from this special ministerial segment of the Conference.

The segment is meant to draw attention to the human face of desertification, land degradation and drought, he said, and ensured the stakeholders that “India has the COP presidency for the next 2 years. We will work with all of you and I can ensure that our positive actions will help us give a better earth to the future generations.”

Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint-Vincent The Grenadines, said, “The collective responses of nations globally have not measured up adequately or sufficiently to the enormous task at hand, so as to obviate disaster. Accordingly, COP 14 convened under the aegis of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is a seminal staging post in humanity’s quest for a better and sustainable condition of our lives, living and production.”

Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations welcomed the Prime Ministers and other dignitaries to the Conference, and said, “we no longer have the luxury of spending the next 10 years meeting preparing the targets. We have two weeks to move our common agenda in the right direction to bend the curve on a planet of less than 2 degrees, towards action and impact.”

She highlighted that 800m people are still going hungry and that crop yields are dropping, and demand for food is set to increase by 50 percent in the coming decades. Restoring 150 million hectares of farmland could feed 200 million more people every year. At the same time, it would provide greater resilience and over 30 billion a year in increased income for small stakeholders and sink an additional 2 gigatones of carbon dioxide per year.

It is in these critical times where our individual and collective responsibilities will be needed, even more than they ever have been. It is a massive effort but together we can lift and achieve the aspirations of the climate agenda,” she added.

“The [Climate Action] Summit “is not the first and last stop. It is the first step towards concrete actions and we are asking commitments from our member states. I will say considerable engagement with financial sector is really important, since there is a barrier, if we don’t have resources. So, we are saying public funds, must move. We are not correct in saying the Green Climate Fund doesn’t have money on the table, they do, and the states do make contributions that is a good signal towards the climate action summit in the next two weeks. It is continuous engagement, that is what it is about,” she added.

Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD Executive Secretary, highlighted the present and inter-generational impacts of land degradation globally and underlined the plight of the children being born “whose future is not in the hands of the parents alone, but of humanity at large.”

He drew attention to recent scientific assessments that revealed the harm caused by land degradation, stressed importance of the current COP in laying “the groundwork for change” for the five United Nations Summits to be held in New York soon, and said “combining our land with three little concepts of equality, partnerships and scale could take us a very long way towards our common goals.”

Thiaw also concurred with Mr. Mohammed regarding the role of the private sector in ramping up land restoration particularly for vulnerable, rural and smallholder farmers, and clarified that the engagement with the private sector is not the same as privatizing land.

COP14 President Javadekar said that, “combating desertification have to be a national goal. In India, we are already on the way of combating desertification, the green covering is rising in India. From 24% in the last 5 years, it has increased by nearly 15,000 square km and we are inching towards our target of having 33% of green cover.”

“If human actions have done damage to the world and the environment, now positive human actions will make a difference and will give a better earth for future generations,” he added.

Over 8,000 delegates, including ministers, heads of United Nations and intergovernmental bodies, youth, local governments, business leaders and representatives of non-governmental organizations are attending the Conference, whose theme is “Investing in Restoration to Unlock Opportunities.”

COP14, which ends Friday, is expected to adopt over 30 decisions and a few country-led initiatives on the actions governments will take to reverse land degradation especially over the next two years, and also beyond.

Notes to Editors:
India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention for Combating Desertification (UNCCD). The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is the nodal Ministry of Government of India (GoI) that oversees implementation of the Convention in the country.
India’s population is projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. About 2 billion hectares of land – an area over three times the size of India – are degraded, but can be restored back to health. India was one of the first countries to commit to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal target of achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN).
India is the current President of COP14 and will serve for 2 years. As with previous COP sessions, a high-level segment is in progress to raise political momentum for the negotiations and boost the engagement of stakeholders in the Convention’s implementation.

About UNCCD
The UNCCD is an international agreement on good land stewardship. It helps people, communities and countries to create wealth, grow economies and secure enough food and water and energy, by ensuring land users have an enabling environment for sustainable land management. Through partnerships, the Convention’s 197 Parties set up robust systems to manage drought promptly and effectively. Good land stewardship based on a sound policy and science helps integrate and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, builds resilience to climate change and prevents biodiversity loss.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/world-leaders-call-global-action-restore-degraded-land/feed/0Desertification Costs World Economy up to 15 trillion dollars – U.N.http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/desertification-costs-world-economy-15-trillion-dollars-u-n/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=desertification-costs-world-economy-15-trillion-dollars-u-n
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/desertification-costs-world-economy-15-trillion-dollars-u-n/#respondSat, 07 Sep 2019 00:47:15 +0000James Reinlhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163132Forest fires, droughts and other forms of land degradation cost the global economy as much as 15 trillion dollars every year and are deepening the climate change crisis, a top United Nations environment official said Friday. Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said the degradation of land was shaving […]

Forest fires, droughts and other forms of land degradation cost the global economy as much as 15 trillion dollars every year and are deepening the climate change crisis. Pictured is a drone visual of an area in Upper East Region, Ghana prior to restoration taken in 2015. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah /IPS

By James ReinlUNITED NATIONS, Sep 7 2019 (IPS)

Forest fires, droughts and other forms of land degradation cost the global economy as much as 15 trillion dollars every year and are deepening the climate change crisis, a top United Nations environment official said Friday.

“In very simple terms, the message is to say: invest in land restoration as a way of improving livelihoods, in reducing vulnerabilities contributing to climate change, and reducing risks for the economy,” Thiaw said in response to a question from IPS.

Thiaw spoke to reporters in New York through a video-link from New Delhi, India, where delegates from UNCCD signatories are gathering for talks on tackling the desertification threat, which runs until Sept. 13.

Droughts and desertification currently hit 70 countries each year, while sand and dust storms are becoming a growing menace around the world, leading to asthma, bronchitis and other health problems, Thiaw warned.

“The good news is that the technology, the science and the knowledge is there to actually reduce land degradation and fix this phenomenon once and for all,” said Thiaw, formerly a Mauritanian official and deputy chief of the U.N. Environment Programme.

“Land restoration is being done in many parts of the world and by restoring land we are able to mitigate climate change.”

Some 100 government ministers and 8,000 delegates from 196 countries are at the UNCCD talks, which will cover drought, land tenure, restoring ecosystems, climate change, health, sand and dust storms and funding to revamp cities.

Thiaw praised a record-breaking turnout of decision-makers in the Indian capital that “could mark a major turning point for how we manage the scarce land and water resources we have left.”

Attendees include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his counterpart from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves, and the world body’s deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed.

An outcome document, known as the “Delhi Declaration”, will inform this month’s climate summit in New York and spur a “coalition of like-minded countries” to make firmer pledges on tackling droughts, said Thiaw.

“We are fast running out of time to build our resilience to climate change, avoid the loss of biological diversity and valuable ecosystems and achieve all other Sustainable Development Goals,” said Thiaw, referencing the U.N.’s SDG agenda.

“But we can turn around the lives of the over 3.2 billion people all over the world that are negatively impacted by desertification and drought, if there is political will. And we can revitalise ecosystems that are collapsing from a long history of land transformation and, in too many cases, unsustainable land management.”

Droughts are getting worse, says the UNCCD. By 2025, some 1.8 billion people will experience serious water shortages, and two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in “water-stressed” conditions.

Though droughts are complex and develop slowly, they cause more deaths than other types of disasters, the UNCCD warns. By 2045, droughts will have forced as many as 135 million people from their homes.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/desertification-costs-world-economy-15-trillion-dollars-u-n/feed/0Achieving Global Consensus on How to Slow Down Loss of Landhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/achieving-global-consensus-to-slow-down-loss-of-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=achieving-global-consensus-to-slow-down-loss-of-land
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/achieving-global-consensus-to-slow-down-loss-of-land/#respondWed, 04 Sep 2019 15:58:59 +0000Ranjit Devrajhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163105Expectations are high, perhaps too high, as the 14th Conference of the Parties (CoP 14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), now into the third day of its two-week session, is being held outside the smog-filled Indian capital of New Delhi. At the inauguration on Monday, India’s minister for environment, forests and […]

India’s minister for environment, forests and climate change, Prakash Javadekar (left), said he would be happy if CoP 14 could achieve consensus on such difficult issues as drought management and land tenure. Courtesy: Ranjit Devraj

By Ranjit DevrajNEW DELHI, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Expectations are high, perhaps too high, as the 14th Conference of the Parties (CoP 14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), now into the third day of its two-week session, is being held outside the smog-filled Indian capital of New Delhi.

At the inauguration on Monday, India’s minister for environment, forests and climate change, Prakash Javadekar, soon after ceremonies to mark his taking over as president of the Convention for the next two years, said he would be happy if CoP 14 could achieve consensus on such difficult issues as drought management and land tenure.

Other issues on the agenda of CoP14, themed ‘Restore land, Sustain future’ and located in Greater Noida, in northern Uttar Pradesh state, include negotiations over consumption and production flows that have a bearing on agriculture and urbanisation, restoration of ecosystems and dealing with climate change.

The IPCC report covered interlinked, overlapping issues that are at the core of CoP14 deliberations — climate, change, desertification, and degradation, sustainable land management, food security and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

“Sustainable land management can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of multiple stressors, including climate change, on ecosystems and societies,” the IPCC report said. It also identified land use change as the largest driver of biodiversity loss and as having the greatest impact on the environment.

Javadekar said he saw hope in the fact that of the 196 parties to the Convention 122, including some of the most populous like Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, Russia and South Africa have agreed to make the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal of achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) targets by 2030 as national objectives.

But the difficulty of seeing results on the ground can be gauged from India’s own difficult situation. Nearly 30 percent of India’s 328 million hectares, supporting 1.3 billion people, has become degraded through deforestation, over-cultivation, soil-erosion and wetland depletion, according to a satellite survey conducted in 2016 by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

A study, conducted last year by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), an independent think-tank based in New Delhi, estimates India’s losses from land degradation and change in land use to be worth 47 billion dollars in 2014—2015.

The question before CoP14 is how participating countries can slow down loss of land and along with it biodiversity threatening to impact 3.2 billion people across the world. “Three out of every four hectares have been altered from their natural states and the productivity of one every four hectares of land has been declining,” according to UNCCD.

Running in parallel to CoP14 is the 14th session of UNCCD’s committee on science and technology (CST14), a subsidiary body with stated objectives — estimating soil organic carbon lost as a result of land degradation, addressing the ‘land-drought nexus’ through land-based interventions and translating available science into policy options for participating countries.

On Tuesday, as CoP4 launched into substantive business, the participants at the CST and other subsidiary bodies began to voice real apprehensions and demands.

Bhutan representing the Asia Pacific group, highlighted the need for cooperation at all levels to disseminate and translate identified technologies and knowledge into direct benefits for local land users.

Bangladesh pointed out that LDN targets are sometimes linked to transboundary water resources and also called for mobilising additional resources for capacity building.

Colombia, speaking for the Latin America and Caribbean group, appreciated the value of research by the scientific panels, but urged introduction of improved technologies and mitigation strategies to reduce the direct impacts of drought on ecosystems, starting with soil degradation.

Russia, on behalf of Central and Eastern Europe, mooted the establishment of technical centres in the region to support the generation of scientific evidence to prevent and manage droughts, sustainable use of forests and peatlands and monitoring of sand and dust storms.

Civil society organisations, led by the Cape Town-based Environmental Monitoring Group, were also critical of the UNCCD for putting too much emphasis on LDN and demanded optimisation of land use through practical solutions that would ensure that carbon is retained in the soil.

“Retaining carbon in the soil is of particular value to India and its neighbouring countries, which presently have the world’s greatest rainwater runoffs into the sea,” says Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), a New Delhi based NGO, working on the water and environment sectors.

“What South Asian countries need to do urgently is to improve the rainwater harvesting so as to recharge groundwater aquifers and local water bodies in a given catchment so that water is available in the post-monsoon period that increasingly see severe droughts,” Thakkar tells IPS. “This is where governments can be supportive.”

Benefits such as preventing soil degradation and consequent landslides that have become a common feature in South India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

A study published in May said half of the area around 16 of India’s 24 major river basins is facing droughts due to lowered soil moisture levels while at least a third of its 18 river basins has become non-resilient to vegetation droughts.

Responding to the suggestions and demands the Secretariat highlighted recommendations to ensure mainstreaming of LDN targets in national strategies and action programmes, partnerships on science-policy to increase awareness and understanding of LDN and collaborations to assess finance and capacity development needs.

In all, the delegates, who include 90 ministers and more than 7,000 participants drawn from among government officials, civil society and the scientific community from the 197 parties will thrash out 30 decision texts and draw up action plans to strengthen land-use policies and address emerging threats such as droughts, forest fires, dust storms and forced migration.

“The agenda shows that governments have come to CoP14 ready to find solutions to many difficult, knotty and emerging policy issues,” said Thiaw at the inaugural session. The conference ends with the parties signing a ‘New Delhi Declaration’ outlining actions to meet UNCCD goals for 2018-2030.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/achieving-global-consensus-to-slow-down-loss-of-land/feed/0Let’s Walk the Talk to Defeat Climate Change – African Leaders Toldhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/lets-walk-talk-defeat-climate-change-african-leaders-told/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lets-walk-talk-defeat-climate-change-african-leaders-told
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/lets-walk-talk-defeat-climate-change-african-leaders-told/#respondWed, 28 Aug 2019 15:05:56 +0000Isaiah Esipisuhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163026African leaders have been asked to walk the talk, and lead from the front, in order to build resilience and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change on the continent. This was the message conveyed by several speakers at the ongoing eighth Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA) conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. […]

African leaders have been asked to walk the talk, and lead from the front, in order to build resilience and adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change on the continent.

This was the message conveyed by several speakers at the ongoing eighth Climate Change and Development in Africa (CCDA) conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“Our first urgent action is to build the Resilience and Adaptation to the adverse impacts of climate change for the most vulnerable communities across Africa,” said Dr James Kinyangi, the Chief Climate Policy Officer at the African Development Bank (AfDB), as he articulated commitments by the Bank on tackling climate change.

“The time is now, to translate the (2015 Paris) agreement into concrete action, to safeguard development gains and address the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable,” he told the CCDA forum which brings together policy makers, civil society, youth, private sector, academia and development partners every year to discuss climate emerging issues and to review progress ahead of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP).

“We must challenge our leaders to walk the talk, and lead from the front in the spirit of the UN Secretary General, who recently pointed out that beautiful speeches are not enough to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Mithika Mwenda, the Secretary General for the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) an umbrella organization of over 1000 Africa environment and climate civil society groups.

So far, 53 African countries have committed to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to slow down the impact of climate change, identifying the need for an estimated USD 3.5 – 4 trillion of investment by 2030.

According to Kinyangi, these commitments present an opportunity for the AfDB to contribute to policies and actions that mobilise the financial resources needed to support long-term investments in resilience and Africa’s transition to low carbon development.

In a recently published interview, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina said: “Africa cannot adapt to climate change through words. It can only adapt to climate change through resources.”

“Africa has been shortchanged in terms of climate change because the continent accounts for only 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions but it suffers disproportionately from the negative impacts,” he declared.

He said AfDB is leading an effort to create an African Financial Alliance for climate, which will bring together financial institutions, stock exchanges, and central banks in Africa, to develop an endogenous financing model that would support Africa to adapt to climate change without depending on anybody else outside the continent.

Early this year, tropical cyclones, Idai and Kenneth ripped through five African countries – Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Comoros both within a period of one month.

Kenneth is on record as the strongest storm ever to make landfall, while Idai, is the worst ever storm in terms of loss and damages to hit the African continent, where more than 1,000 lives were lost with damage of property worth 1 billion US dollars.

“In Sudan, we have just won a democratic struggle, but we are faced by another catastrophic ecological crisis of monumental proportion, which, last week alone, killed at least 62 people and destroyed 37,000 homes,” said Nisreen Eslaim, a climate activist from Sudan, referring to floods that recently swept through the city of Khartoum.

Since the threat of floods, droughts and heatwaves will be amplified with increasing climate variability, experts believe that the best response strategy is one that improves the resilience of economies, infrastructure, ecosystems and societies to climate variability and change.

“As much as we are trying to respond to climate related calamities, we need longer-term action for disaster risk management. Hence, a reason why we must do whatever it takes to implement the Paris Agreement,” Kinyangi told IPS.

To support African countries adapt to climate change, AfDB has committed to ensuring that at least 40 percent of its project approvals are tagged as climate finance by 2020, with equal proportions for adaptation and mitigation. The bank also seeks to mainstream climate change and green growth initiatives into all investments by next year.

“As much as we will be mobilizing significantly, more new and additional climate finance, to Africa by 2020, we will keep pushing the rich countries to deliver on the pledged 100 billion dollars each year,” said Kinyangi.

“As we know, our leaders’ focus is slowly but surely turning to other issues dominating international diplomatic interactions such as Iran/US tiff, Brexit, Terrorism and the emerging extreme right-wing movements, which constitute a risk of increased climate scepticism,” said Mwenda.

“Our only hope is unity of purpose, and the purpose which brings us here in Addis Ababa – to contribute to a process which will shape the future of humanity and health of the planet,” added the PACJA boss.

According to Ambassador Josefa Sacko, the Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the Africa Union Commission, there is need for increased ambition in the fight against climate change.

“Without ambitious and urgent global commitments to tackle climate change, the ability of most African countries to attain the Sustainable Development Goals and the ideals of Africa’s Agenda 2063 remain elusive,” she said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, has convened a Climate Action Summit September 23 at the United Nations in New York, and has called on all leaders to come to the summit with concrete, ambitious and realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and to net zero emissions by 2050 as called for by the IPCC special report.

Africa is grappling with myriad environmental and climate challenges, from drought to loss of biodiversity, cyclones and plastics pollution.

Africa Renewal spoke with the UN Environment Programme’s Deputy Executive Director, Joyce Msuya, on how African countries can mitigate some of these challenges and the opportunities that are available.

Excerpts from the interview:

MUSAU: It is about a year since you were appointed Deputy Executive Director of UNEP, and for a while you acted as the Executive Director. What has this journey been like for you?

MSUYA: I joined UNEP in August 2018 and it has been a fulfilling journey for me. Given the absolute centrality of environment in development, in attaining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it’s been great to see how the UN has played a leading role in many ways.

For example, we recently released the Global Environment Outlook 6, showing that we are increasingly connecting the environment to the broader development issues.

MUSAU: What are some of the highlights of your time at UNEP?

MSUYA: A key highlight has definitely been the Fourth UN Environment Assembly in March 2019, which focused on the innovations that can help us achieve sustainable production and consumption.

After five days of discussions, ministers from more than 170 UN member states delivered a bold blueprint for change, saying the world needed to speed up moves towards a new model of development in order to respect the vision laid out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Member States agreed to 23 non-binding resolutions covering a range of environmental challenges, including a more circular global economy; sustainable public procurement; addressing food waste and sharing best practices on energy-efficient and safe cold chain solutions.

If countries deliver on all that was agreed here and implement the resolutions, we could take a big step towards a new world order where we no longer grow at the expense of nature but instead see people and planet thrive together.

I have a strong team behind me—the staff at UNEP and the rest of the UN family. As a woman from East Africa, it is a very humbling experience to serve in the organisation, and be based at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, to work on environmental issues.

Zipporah Musau

MUSAU: What are some of the major environmental challenges facing Africa today and how can they be addressed?

MSUYA: I would summarize the biggest environmental challenges facing Africa today in four categories. One is the impact of climate change, considering that most African economies still depend on the agriculture sector.

The second is loss of biodiversity because this impacts food security and natural ecosystems. The third is energy, as many African economies are growing fast and require sufficient energy.

Lastly, looking at the demographic trends, there is a lot of growth in urban areas with populations moving to cities. This brings challenges, including that of waste management.

MUSAU: Are there any opportunities?

MSUYA: There are exciting opportunities. After the Paris Agreement, there was a global commitment and political will to address climate change. We are currently working with African countries to help them develop national plans in mitigation and adaptation.

On nature, next year there will be a big global meeting in China on the Convention on Biological Diversity, offering African member states the opportunity to shape the global biodiversity agenda by sharing strategies that are working well and can be replicated elsewhere.

Africa is endowed with many hours of unobstructed sunlight; how can we promote more usage of solar energy and other renewables to fuel Africa’s economies?

Credit: UNEP

MUSAU: UNEP has been pushing for a green economy by promoting low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive policies. How can African countries tap into this?

MSUYA: Push for cleaner sources of energy. We are already seeing several developments in this. If you follow what is happening in South Africa, trying to move its heavy manufacturing industrial sector from being dependent on coal to cleaner energy…it is a slow process. Transition from bad sources of energy to renewables takes time.

Then we have banning deforestation and making green economy plans. Countries like Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa are moving in this direction. It needs ministers of environment to work very closely with ministers of finance to develop these plans. UNEP is using its convening role to help member states do this.

UN Environment supports and showcases science-informed policies that have the potential to transform humanity’s relationship with our environment.

MUSAU: What are some of the ways African countries can deal with the plastic menace?

MSUYA: Governments, citizens, the private sector and civil society all have a role to play when it comes to plastics. There are four ways that African governments and citizens can help with the menace.

First is leadership and political will to actually put in place regulations to ban single-use plastics and promote reuse of smart plastics. The second is for the citizens to make smart choices, children telling their parents ‘mama, papa, please don’t buy plastics’. Consumer choices can influence the environmental footprint of plastics.

Third, we need to celebrate and advance homegrown advocacy such as the “Flip Flopi,” an indigenous innovation from Kenya where a boat has been made entirely out of plastics found on beaches. It recently sailed from Lamu to Zanzibar to raise awareness.

Lastly, partnerships with the private sector. If you look at good examples of where single-use plastics have been banned, there have been engagements between governments and the private sector to encourage them to find alternative and more sustainable ways to replace plastics bags.

Part of UNEP’s role is to promote the sharing of these experiences. A number of countries in Africa, including my own, Tanzania, and also Kenya, are looking at how they can preserve the national parks to sustain the tourism industry and people’s livelihoods.

And finally, we need to see how we can address the plastic menace by introducing more circularity into economies. This is where capacity-building support for governments will be critical.

MUSAU: How is UNEP helping member states in Africa to achieve SDGs and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda? In particular, how is UNEP coordinating with pan-African organisations such as the African Union to address the effects of climate change?

MSUYA: UN Environment supports and showcases science-informed policies that have the potential to transform humanity’s relationship with our environment. We also host global platforms – from the UN Environment Assembly to international financial networks to multilateral environmental agreements – that catalyze action.

And we advocate, working with citizens across the world, to inspire change. However, we cannot do it alone because the scale of the challenge is huge but there are enormous opportunities to make a difference and so partnerships are critical. For political advocacy we are engaging with the African Union through our office in Addis Ababa.

We provide policy advice, technical assistance and capacity building. We are working with NEPAD and talking to the East African Community to see how we can support the sub-regional and regional initiatives. I was in Cape Town, South Africa, earlier this year, with other regional bodies, to learn how countries develop green economic plans.

MUSAU: How is UNEP engaging women and youth?

MSUYA: We are engaging them at various levels as part of the intergovernmental process. Women and youth are a core part of implementing our programs. At the UNEA 4, we heard from many youth activists on why they are becoming impatient and demanded for action from us.

MUSAU: What is your message to African countries on environment?

MSUYA: Africa has a significant role to play when it comes to the environment. All these global challenges have an impact on the continent, hence the need to hear African voices at all levels in global forums. Also, incorporating and mainstreaming environment in all the activities at the country level is key as is translating these into actions.

Partnerships are crucial: Africa is diverse, but we can build on that diversity to bring collective action. Our challenges cannot be solved individually. It takes a village to raise a child in Africa; it is going to take a village to solve our environmental problems.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/pushing-green-economy-clean-energy/feed/0What Would It Really Take to Plant a Trillion Trees?http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/really-take-plant-trillion-trees/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=really-take-plant-trillion-trees
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/really-take-plant-trillion-trees/#respondMon, 26 Aug 2019 18:32:48 +0000Tim Christophersenhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162993Tim Christophersen is Head of the Freshwater, Land and Climate Branch at UNEP and Chair of the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration

Tree planting is capturing the minds of those who look for fast climate action. Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Government announced a new world record: thousands of volunteers planted 353 million trees in one single day. This came shortly after a team of scientists identified suitable places in the world where up to 1 trillion new trees could be planted. Such a massive effort could absorb about 20 years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions. And on 8 August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change launched a Special Report on the importance of land use for the climate. About 23 per cent of all emissions come from the agriculture, land use and forest sector. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlines land management opportunities with benefits for food security, biodiversity, and the climate, such as agroforestry.

The growing enthusiasm for forests and trees is a good thing. Ecosystem restoration will be critical in turning the tide against climate change, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. But we need to be mindful of some pitfalls lurking along the way. We have learned valuable lessons over the past decades in afforestation and other restoration projects across dozens of countries. A few basic principles outlined by the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration can help us to reduce costs and minimize future risk as the world embraces the need to plant more trees.

Stop the bleeding
The first rule for ecosystem restoration is to stop the further destruction of forests, wetlands, and other critical ‘green infrastructure’. Conserving natural habitats is always cheaper than restoring it later.

Most new trees do not need to be planted
Most ecosystems in the world have remnant seeds in the soil and natural regrowth can be cheaper and more successful than tree planting. The most cost-effective type of restoration is to work with the forces of nature. For example, across the Sahel, a successful and fast landscape restoration technique is called ‘farmer-managed natural regeneration’. It uses the existence of remnant root stocks below the surface, where the trees above ground have disappeared long ago. Farmers nurture those roots and trees back to life. The results are stunning—within a few years, large trees dot the surface of the once barren and dry savannah, bringing back water, productivity and life.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel
There is already an impressive body of knowledge on which trees to plant, when and where. Under the Bonn Challenge, a global restoration goal initiated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Government of Germany, 59 governments, private associations and other entities have pledged to bring 170 million hectares into restoration by 2020, and 350 million by 2030. Dozens of countries have already detailed maps of where the best restoration opportunities can be found, and how to restore forests and landscapes. Usually, indigenous tree species are preferable, but in a rapidly changing climate, we need to keep in mind that the natural ranges of trees are shifting.

Social inclusion is essential
Forest and landscape restoration is mostly about social transformation, rather than technological solutions. However, this transformation is hard work and requires patience. It is tempting to just stick a few tree seedlings in the ground and hope for the best, but real restoration across an entire landscape is the work of years or even decades. Large-scale restoration successes such as the Shinyanga landscape in Tanzania or the Loess Plateau in China have shown that results of well-planned restoration can yield very high returns for society over a long time.

We must remove the bottlenecks
Some ingredients for success are essential, and their availability varies across countries. The most important one is political will. Fortunately, political will is now growing as protests for more climate action are spreading. Another major ingredient is clarity over ownership and management rights. The estimated 1 billion smallholder farmers in the world will be key. We need to empower them, and give them access to the tools and the finance for improved farming, such as agroforestry. A third key ingredient is availability of a variety of high-quality tree seedlings, in particular for planting trees on farms.

Finally, perhaps the most critical ingredient are massive public and private investments into land restoration. We need to achieve a similar trajectory for a shift in agriculture and forestry as is happening in renewable energy. And just like the shift in renewables, it will take a massive push from both public and private actors to establish restoration as a new financial asset class. It is estimated that every dollar invested in ecosystem restoration can yield more than US$10 in return through ecosystem services. Fortunately, we see growing interest from the finance industry to invest in ecosystem restoration and regenerative agriculture.

Ecosystem restoration and other nature-based climate solutions will be highlighted at the UN Climate Action Summit on 23 September. And the UN General Assembly has just proclaimed a UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration from 2021 to 2030. With the right approach, we can make the conservation and restoration of ecosystems, including the planting of billions of new trees, a major step in building the sustainable future we all want.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/really-take-plant-trillion-trees/feed/0Burning Forests for Rain, and Other Climate Catastropheshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/burning-forests-rain-climate-catastrophes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=burning-forests-rain-climate-catastrophes
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/burning-forests-rain-climate-catastrophes/#respondFri, 09 Aug 2019 12:18:19 +0000Miriam Gathigahhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162795The villagers living on the foothills of Mount Kenya have a belief: If they burn the forest, the rains will come. “Generally, we believe that the sky is covered by a thick layer of ice and only a forest fire can rise high enough to melt this ice and give us rainfall,” Njoroge Mungai, a […]

Communities living on the foothills of Mount Kenya believe that burning forests will result in rain. A new United Nations report states that deforestation is one of the major drivers of climate change. Credit: CC By 2.0/Regina Hart

By Miriam GathigahNAIROBI, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

The villagers living on the foothills of Mount Kenya have a belief: If they burn the forest, the rains will come.

“Generally, we believe that the sky is covered by a thick layer of ice and only a forest fire can rise high enough to melt this ice and give us rainfall,” Njoroge Mungai, a resident from Kiamungo village, Kirinyaga County, which is located on the foothills of Mount Kenya, tells IPS.

It is little wonder then that Kirinyaga is one of the counties most affected by wild fires, according to the Kenya Forest Services (KFS).

During the first two months of this year, at least 114 forest fires were recorded across Kenya with at least five major forests being adversely affected, according to KFS. In just a matter of days in February, a wild fire ravaged an estimated 80,000 acres of Mount Kenya’s forest moorlands. Forest and wildlife experts are adamant that communities living around these forested areas are responsible for the fires.

Such significant loss of forest cover is not a unique occurrence across Africa. And yet deforestation is one of the major drivers of climate change, according to a new report.

Co-authored by 107 scientists, almost half of whom are from developing nations and 40 percent of whom are female, the report resoundingly places land management at the very centre of the raging war to combat climate change, stating that effective strategies to address global warming must place sustainable land use systems at their core.

The Mijikenda community in southern Kenya carefully tends to the outskirts of kaya forests, which also serve as the ancient burial grounds of their ancestors, nurturing a diverse ecosystem that is home to rare plant and bird species. A new United Nations report states that effective strategies to address global warming must place sustainable land use systems at their core. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

“IPCC’s newly released report focuses on the link between global warming and land use. At the core of this report is the nexus between climate change and unsustainable land use, including unsustainable global food systems,” Richard Munang, the sub-programme coordinator on climate change at U.N. Environment’s Africa Office, tells IPS.

Munang says that this nexus “is already coming to the fore in Africa especially now that the continent is losing forest cover at a rate that is much higher than the global average.”

He further explains that globally, Africa bears the second-highest cost of land degradation—estimated at 65 billion dollars per year—and that this has put a strain on economic growth.

“While average losses resulting from land degradation in most countries are estimated at nine percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), some of the worst afflicted countries are in Africa and lose a staggering 40 percent of their GDP,” he says.

The IPCC report emphasises that while climate change itself can increase land degradation through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought intensity, heat stress and dry spells, it is land management practices that has tipped the balance of increased land degradation. The report noted that agriculture, food production, and deforestation are the major drivers of climate change.

According to the report, land is a critical resource and also part of the solution to climate change. However, as more land becomes degraded, it becomes less productive and at the same time reducing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon. This in turn exacerbates climate change.

As a result of significant land use changes, grazing pressures and substantial reduction in soil fertility, U.N. researchers now say that one-third of total carbon emissions come from land.

Dr. Wilfred Subbo, a lecturer in natural resources at the University of Nairobi, notes the findings with concerns: “Land is under a huge amount of pressure and we are increasingly witnessing how human-induced environmental changes contribute to catastrophic carbon emissions.”

“We are indeed heading straight into a climate disaster and this report has highlighted how damaged land is no longer serving as that large sink that absorbs harmful carbon dioxide emissions,” he tells IPS.

Coordinated action to address climate change can simultaneously improve land, food security and nutrition, and help to end hunger, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a statement. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

The report also noted “global warming and urbanisation can enhance warming in cities and their surroundings, especially during heat related events, including heat waves”.

“Last year the United Nations Development Programme indicated that Africa’s urban transition is unprecedented in terms of scale and speed and that the continent is 40 percent urban today,” Subbo says.

Coordinated action to address climate change can simultaneously improve land, food security and nutrition, and help to end hunger, the IPCC said in a statement. The report highlights that climate change is affecting all four pillars of food security: availability (yield and production), access (prices and ability to obtain food), utilisation (nutrition and cooking), and stability (disruptions to availability).

“Food security will be increasingly affected by future climate change through yield declines – especially in the tropics – increased prices, reduced nutrient quality, and supply chain disruptions,” said Priyadarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III, in the statement.

“We will see different effects in different countries, but there will be more drastic impacts on low-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said.

Munang nonetheless points out that all is not lost: “Over 90 percent of countries in Africa have ratified their commitments to accelerate climate action towards achieving the 2015 Paris agreement.”

This agreement seeks to achieve a sustainable low carbon future. Munang emphasises that such climate goals calls for countries to embrace ambitious eco-friendly practices such as agro-forestry, the use of organic fertiliser and clean energy, among others.

He says that a number of African countries are on track. “Ethiopia has done very well and set a new unofficial world record of planting over 350 million trees in just 12 hours.”

Kenya aims to run entirely on green energy by 2020 and is on record as having the largest wind farm in Africa, as is Morocco with the largest solar farm in the world.

“The key going forward is to change perspective and to look at these actions within the broader goal of building globally competitive enterprises with climate action co-benefits,” Munang says.

Meanwhile, back on the foothills of Mount Kenya, Mungai says that there are efforts to educate the community about forest fires and the effect it has on both the land and climate.

“This belief will take time to change because it was passed down from our grandfathers. But the County government is focused on addressing these problems so future generations will learn to do things directly.”

We have known for over 25 years that poor land use and management are major drivers of climate change, but have never mustered the political will to act.

With the release of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on climate change and land, which makes the consequences of inaction crystal clear, we have no excuse for further delay.

We cannot head off the worst ravages of climate change without action on land degradation. The knowledge and technologies to manage our lands sustainably already exist.

All we need is the will to use them to draw down carbon from the atmosphere, protect vital ecosystems and meet the challenge of feeding a growing global population. We must harness the enormous positive potential of our lands and make them part of the climate solution.

With the help of our scientists, I will ensure the issues in this report that are within the scope of the Convention are presented to ministers for strong and decisive action when they meet at the world’s largest intergovernmental forum where decisions on land use and management are made, the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD, taking place in New Delhi, India, in three weeks’ time.

The IPCC report is one of four major assessments released over the last two years that show the wide-ranging impacts of land degradation. It is not just the climate that suffers when land quality declines.

Land degradation jeopardizes our ability to feed the world, threatens the survival of over a million species, destroys ecosystems and drives resource-related conflicts that demand costly international interventions.

These problems are no longer local problems. The report underlines that the increasingly global flows of consumption and production means that what we eat in one country can impact land in another. In the wake of land degradation and drought, communities are breaking down due to the swift and devastating loss of life and livelihoods.

Faced with these life-changing consequences, the UNCCD has developed a robust policy framework that can enable countries to avoid further land degradation and recover land that has become virtually unusable.

Change is happening, but not fast enough. In the last four years, 122 of the 169 countries affected by desertification, land degradation or drought have embarked on setting national targets to halt future degradation and rehabilitate degrading land to ensure the amount of healthy and productive land available in 2015 does not decline by 2030 and beyond.

Last year, these countries submitted baseline date to verify this achievement. And in just three years, close to 70 countries have set up national drought management plans to reduce community and ecosystem vulnerability to droughts, which the IPCC says will become stronger, more frequent and more widespread.

This shows that commitment to reversing land degradation is growing, even though much work remains. More than two billion hectares of land are degraded. Initiatives to restore land on a national or landscape level are not only vital in reversing the process.

They are critical for helping the global community mitigate and adapt to climate change in the short term, using soil and vegetations through methods that do not harm the Earth.

When the ministers meet in September (at the UN in New York), I expect the IPCC report to have a strong influence not only on the policy decisions they will debate, but the will to take them home for appropriate action.

Science can help politicians develop informed policies that will support ordinary people to prepare, act and create more positive pathways to the future.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/land-degradation-jeopardizes-ability-feed-world/feed/0Desertification a Frontline Against Climate Change: IPCChttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/desertification-frontline-climate-change-ipcc/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=desertification-frontline-climate-change-ipcc
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/desertification-frontline-climate-change-ipcc/#respondFri, 09 Aug 2019 09:32:45 +0000James Reinlhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162786A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius. The 43-page study from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released this week says better management of land can help […]

Drone visual of the area in Upper East Region, Ghana prior to restoration of the land that was taken in 2015. Years later the community restored the land by planting trees. A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah /IPS

By James ReinlUNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius.

“Climate change poses a major risk to the world’s food supply, and while better land management can help to combat global warming, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential,” U.N. spokesman Stefan Dujarric told reporters Thursday.

The report offered “compelling evidence” for redoubling global efforts and shows that while “food security is already at risk from climate change, there are many nature-based solutions that can be taken,” added Dujarric.

Among the IPCC’s recommendations were calls for vigorous action to halt soil damage and desertification and for people globally to throw less food into trash cans, whether in private homes or out the back of supermarkets and factories.

Instead, scrap food can be used to feed farm animals, in some cases. Alternatively, food waste can be donated to charities so that homeless people and others in need get much-needed meals.

Controversially, the IPCC also noted that more people could be fed using less land if individuals cut down on eating meat and switched up their diets by consuming more “plant-based foods”.

“Some dietary choices require more land and water, and cause more emissions of heat-trapping gases than others,” said Debra Roberts, co-chair of an IPCC working group.

The report was co-authored by 107 scientists and was finalised this week at talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

It is called “Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems”.

Some 500 million people live in areas facing desertification, IPCC scientists said. These regions are more vulnerable to climate change and such extreme weather events as droughts, heatwaves, and dust storms.

Once land is degraded, it becomes less productive and unsuitable for some crops. It also becomes less effective at absorbing carbon, which drives a vicious cycle of rising temperatures degrading soils even more.

“Land plays an important role in the climate system,” Jim Skea, co-chair of an IPCC working group, said in a statement accompanying the document.

“Agriculture, forestry and other types of land use account for 23 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry.”

Under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, governments pledged to limit the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial times, and ideally to 1.5°C. The world has already heated up by about 1°C.

Droughts and heatwaves are getting worse, according to the UNCCD. By 2025, some 1.8 billion people will experience serious water shortages, and two thirds of the world will be “water-stressed”.

Though droughts are complex and develop slowly, they cause more deaths than other types of disasters, the UNCCD warns. By 2045, droughts will have forced as many as 135 million people from their homes.

But there is hope. By managing water sources, forests, livestock and farming, soil erosion can be reduced and degraded land can be revived, a process that can also help tackle climate change.

“The choices we make about sustainable land management can help reduce and in some cases reverse these adverse impacts,” said Kiyoto Tanabe, co-chair of an IPCC task force on greenhouse gasses.

“In a future with more intensive rainfall the risk of soil erosion on croplands increases, and sustainable land management is a way to protect communities from the detrimental impacts of this soil erosion and landslides.”

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/desertification-frontline-climate-change-ipcc/feed/0Extreme Floods, the Key to Climate Change Adaptation in Africa’s Drylandshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/extreme-floods-key-climate-change-adaptation-africas-drylands/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=extreme-floods-key-climate-change-adaptation-africas-drylands
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/extreme-floods-key-climate-change-adaptation-africas-drylands/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 09:44:52 +0000Isaiah Esipisuhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162759Extreme rainfall and heavy flooding, often amplified by climate change, causes devastation among communities. But new research published on Aug. 7 in the scientific journal Nature reveals that these dangerous events are extremely significant in recharging groundwater aquifers in drylands across sub-Saharan Africa, making them important for climate change adaptation. According to the research, which […]

A borehole in Kenya's Turkana County. Experts say that groundwater in drylands is recharged through extreme floods. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah EsipisuTURKANA COUNTY, Kenya, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

Extreme rainfall and heavy flooding, often amplified by climate change, causes devastation among communities. But new research published on Aug. 7 in the scientific journal Nature reveals that these dangerous events are extremely significant in recharging groundwater aquifers in drylands across sub-Saharan Africa, making them important for climate change adaptation.

According to the research, which was led by the University College London (UCL) and Cardiff University, this vital source of water for drinking and irrigation across sub-Saharan Africa is resilient to climate variability and change.

“Our study reveals, for the first time, how climate plays a dominant role in controlling the process by which groundwater is restocked,” Richard Taylor, a Professor of Hydrogeology from UCL, told IPS. Taylor is the co-lead on the new study, which was conducted with a consortium of 32 scientists from different universities and institutions from Africa and beyond.

Researchers reviewed data sets of water levels from 14 wells across the region that are not generally used by people.

“Our data-driven results imply greater resilience to climate change than previously supposed in many locations from a groundwater perspective and thus question, for example, the model-driven [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC consensus that ‘Climate change is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions,’” Taylor said in a statement.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report states in contrast that “climate change over the twenty-first century is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions, intensifying competition for water among sectors”.

Groundwater plays a central role in sustaining water supplies and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa due to its widespread availability, generally high quality, and intrinsic ability to buffer episodes of drought and increasing climate variability.

So the finding comes as good news for communities and governments across Africa where livelihoods are becoming more and more dependent on groundwater.
“In our current budget, we have allocated over Sh164 million (1.64 million dollars) to irrigation projects, and most of the water already being used is from boreholes,” Chris Aleta, Kenya’s Turkana County Minister for Water and Irrigation, told IPS.

Turkana is a pastoral county and one of the driest in Kenya. Research has revealed that between 1977 and 2016, cattle, which is the main source of livelihood in this county, reduced by 60 percent.

Currently thousands of households are producing horticultural crops that are sold locally in major towns and even overseas.

“Some of us do not have a single cow to graze,” Paul Samal, a pastoralist-turned-farmer from Kaptir Ward, Turkana County, told IPS.

“I had over 200 goats and a herd of 50 cattle, but most of them were consumed by the drought in 2011, and the remaining stock was stolen in 2015,” said the father of five.
So in 2016 he began using groundwater to grow tomatoes, watermelons and indigenous vegetables.

Kenya’s neighbour Tanzania will also benefit from the findings.The country’s capital city Dodoma relies solely in groundwater from the Makutapora well field.

According to Lister Kongola, a retired hydrologist who worked for the government of Tanzania from 1977 to 2012, the demand for water in Dodoma City has been rising over the years, from 20 million litres per day (l/day) in the 1970s, to 30 million l/day in the 1980s and to the current 61 million l/day.

The World Bank estimates that at least 70 percent of over 250 million people living in southern African countries rely on groundwater as their primary source of water for drinking, sanitation and livelihood support through agriculture, ecosystem health, and industrial growth.

According to scientists, understanding the nexus of climate extremes and groundwater replenishment is vital for sustainability. This improved understanding is also critical for producing reliable climate change impact projections and adaptation strategies.

The new study also found that unlike drylands, where leakage from seasonal streams, rivers and ponds replenish groundwater, in humid areas groundwater is replenished primarily by rainfall directly infiltrating the land surface.

“This finding is important because model-based assessments of groundwater resources currently ignore the contribution of leaking streams and ponds to groundwater supplies, underestimating its renewability in drylands and resilience to climate change,” said Dr Mark Cuthbert, a research scientist from Cardiff University.

According to Michael Arunga of World Vision, an international humanitarian agency that sometimes supports communities during extreme climate events, the findings are vital for spatial planning for governments in Africa.

“The good thing is that extreme droughts and rainfall seasons are predictable, and the patterns are the same across Africa,” Arunga told IPS.
“These findings will therefore make it easier for governments to draft policies for sustainable groundwater use based on knowledge.”

Since extreme floods can easily be predicted up to nine months in advance, the researchers say that there is a possibility of designing schemes to enhance groundwater recharge by capturing a portion of flood discharges via a process known as Managed Aquifer Recharge.

According to Prof Daniel Olago, a senior lecturer at the Department of Geology, University of Nairobi, groundwater in Africa remains a hidden resource that has not been studied exhaustively.

“When people want to access groundwater, they ask experts to go out there and do a hydro-geophysical survey basically to site a borehole without necessarily understanding the characteristics of that particular aquifer,” he told IPS.

However, in the recent past, the United Kingdom research councils (Natural Environment Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), the Department for International Development (DFID) and The Royal Society have been supporting studies that seek to understand the potential of groundwater resources in Africa, and how it can be used to alleviate poverty.

“Moving into the 21st century with climate change, with growing population, with rapid growing urban centres, groundwater is going to be very important,” said Olago.

Over 100 years ago a little brown passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoo. She was the last of her breed. Just like that, in an instant, a bird species that had once numbered in the billions was wiped out forever.

I’ve been researching Martha and other endangered species for the past five years in my efforts to write a book that children can relate to on the importance of conservation and environmental protection.

Greg Benchwick

What’s become perfectly clear to me as I wrote and rewrote my new book, is that if we don’t educate our children on the importance of conservation today, we are likely to experience a catastrophic loss of biodiversity that will alter the course of human and natural history forever.

Think about how the lessons of Martha connect with our current disastrous state of affairs. Martha lived through a seminal time in American history that included the expansion West, industrialization, the Gilded Age (an age of decadent consumption), huge population growth, several wars (nothing new there), and the heady legacy of Manifest Destiny.

In the US, we burned coal, we raped the land, we expanded our economies, and we became, before long, the greatest industrial empire the world had ever seen. “Martha is a remarkable tale set against a vibrant historic backdrop. The story masterfully weaves together true historic elements and parables on conservation and environmentalism in a magical world that young readers will love exploring. Truly a must read for children and adults alike, this book is a wake up call. If we don't act now, we risk losing close to half of our global biodiversity by 2050. Our planet is in crisis. In the tradition of Dr. Seuss's 'The Lorax,' this new book by Greg Benchwick should be taught the world over. We can only hope it's not too late." - Alan Miller, RT World Bank Principal Climate Change Specialist and globally recognized expert on environmentalism, climate change and conservation.

But at what cost?

Facing habitat loss and other environmental impacts, passenger pigeons began to drop like flies. In just a few short decades, the bird flocks that had once stretched for miles across the American Heartland as they made their northern migration, were no more.

Our children need to know the story of Martha. They need to know the story of George the Snail, who died in Hawaii at the ripe old age of 14 earlier this year, and was the last Achatinella apexfulva snail on the planet. They need to know the story of the Dodo and how scientists are working today to restore coral reefs and protect natural habitats in its native Mauritius.

Children need to learn about the dire consequences of Planet Earth’s sixth mass extinction. At our current unchecked and unbridled rates of conspicuous consumption, pollution, habitat loss, population growth, heating oceans, rising temperatures and melting ice-caps, an estimated 1 million species could follow Martha into the history books.

An entire generation will miss out on the majesty, power and grace of wild gorillas, sea turtles, Bengal tigers and polar bears. They will miss out on swimming in the technicolor wonderlands of the Great Barrier Reef. They will miss out on the endless possibilities that our world’s insects, birds and plant life could bring to science and humanity.

In the developing world, they will miss out on much more. Climate change, species loss and environmental degradation is already triggering violent conflict and mass migration. It’s pushing children and their families to leave their homelands. It’s disrupting entire economies. This means more children go hungry, more children are forced out of an education, and more children will never get the chance to learn and grow and one day be the change we need to save planet earth.

Yes, children need to learn about these dangerous and inconvenient truths. And they need to learn about our history so we don’t repeat our mistakes.

Failing to do so puts our very existence at risk.

Think about it this way. More than 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs will die by 2050.

This is certainly bad for people that rely on fish for food. But it’s also really, really bad for our economy. With violent storms and rising sea levels, entire communities could be wiped out without the protection barrier reefs provide. Oceanic ecosystems will fall apart and coastal peoples will be forced to move.

First and foremost, we need to stop talking about the possibilities of climate and environmental disaster. We are in it!

Everyday we lose a dozen or more species, and we are still fretting about teaching subjects like climate change and conservation in public schools. In fact, more than half of US teachers do not teach climate change in their schools. I thought we had gotten past that with the Scopes Monkey Trail, but apparently not.

Second, we need teach children about history, and we need to include lessons on conservation in our art, science, reading and even mathematics lessons. Think what understanding the real social and economic facts behind Martha could teach a child about our current situation?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to get children out in nature. This means putting the iPad down (you’re probably reading one right now), and going out for a hike in any local park or preserve. Along the way, you will probably spot dozens of species with your son or daughter, niece, nephew, or favorite student. One of these animals will probably go extinct in that child’s lifetime. Don’t they deserve better?

Greg Benchwick is the author of the new children’s book Martha. The new mid-grade chapter book is available for pre-sales today on Publishizer. When he’s not writing stories about passenger pigeons, Greg works for the United Nations Development Programme to tell the story of climate change and environmental protection, shares stories on sustainable travel for Lonely Planet, and writes about the pressing need to fund education for children living in crisis at Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies hosted by UNICEF.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/little-pigeon-teach-world/feed/0Money Grows on Trees–Don’t Uproot Themhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/money-grows-on-trees-dont-uproot/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=money-grows-on-trees-dont-uproot
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/money-grows-on-trees-dont-uproot/#respondFri, 26 Jul 2019 13:14:10 +0000Friday Phirihttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162592Jennifer Handondo, a small scale farmer of Choma district in southern Zambia, plants food crops such as maize mostly for her family’s needs. Because of uncharacteristically high temperatures and low rainfall during the rainy season in March, the divorced mother who single-handedly supports her three children, has not been able to harvest as much as […]

Jennifer Handondo, a small scale farmer of Choma district in southern Zambia, plants food crops such as maize mostly for her family’s needs. Because of uncharacteristically high temperatures and low rainfall during the rainy season in March, the divorced mother who single-handedly supports her three children, has not been able to harvest as much as she usually does. So she has diversified into selling seedlings of neem, Moringa and other medicinal trees.

“For me, trees represent money and a livelihood, but not in the wrong way through charcoal production but through these seedlings,” she told IPS. As a value add, she recently diversified into selling leaf powders such as Moringa Oleifera—a scientifically proven food and medicinal tree.

While she earns on average about 78 dollars from selling seedlings and powders each month, she said she earns as much as 5,400 dollars a month when she has large orders of the Moringa powder. She receives orders for the powder from large local institutions and explained that she usually has to collaborate with other farmers to fulfil these orders.

“My livelihood is based on trees,” she said.

Zambia’s rising deforestation threat

Zambia has a forest coverage of 49.9 million hectares, representing 66 percent of the total land area in this southern African nation and boasting at least 220 different tree species. However, with a deforestation rate of between 250,000 and 300,000 hectares per annum, this rich biodiversity is at risk of being wiped away.

A recent environment outlook report by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) showed that the country’s high levels of deforestation are not slowing down. The report points to various causes for this, among them illegal indiscriminate cutting of trees and the reckless collection of wood for fuel, charcoal burning, the harvesting of timber, clearing of large tracks of land for agriculture through slash and burn methods, urbanisation and new human settlements.

In addition, the country’s renewable energy connectivity figures are not impressive. It is estimated that only about 25 percent of the population of 17 million is connected to renewable energy sources.

Handondo’s story is different though. A grade nine dropout, she has returned to school and graduated in General Agriculture from the Zambia College of Agriculture. She is passionate and active in forest conservation, participating in tree-planting campaigns and awareness programmes since 2016.
So for her the link to selling seedlings and products from trees as a source of income was an easy one.

She is also a change agent and champion for the World Vision Zambia supported farmer-managed forest regeneration (FMNR) project, which is being implemented in southern Zambia. FMNR is the active regeneration and management of trees and shrubs from felled stumps, sprouting root systems or seeds with the goal of restoring degraded farmland and soil fertility, and increasing the value and/or quantity of woody vegetation on farmland.

“The main objective of FMNR is to empower the community with knowledge to reduce deforestation which has been very rampant in this country,” Shadrick Phiri, World Vision Zambia Agriculture and Natural Resource Specialist, told IPS.

Lucky Choolwe, a field facilitator for Grassroots Trust in Zambia, which engages with land owners and policy-makers to regenerate eco-systems, conducts a practical session with farmers on FMNR. Courtesy: Friday Phiri

According to Phiri, the technique is highly appropriate for rural communities and land that has been degraded to a point where the loss of perennial vegetation cover, biodiversity and soil fertility on farmland is diminishing livelihoods and quality of life.
“FMNR can take place either as an on-farm activity practiced by individual farmers, or in forest areas protected and managed by the community,” Phiri said, adding that the practice is also relevant to the regeneration of grazing lands.

“We have chosen to use a cheap but robust system of regenerating our forests naturally. We currently have 600 farmers under the four area development programmes in Southern Province currently practising FMNR. The figure currently stands at 2,600 households nationally across the 25 area programmes where World Vision is currently working.”

The FMNR project is one of several initiatives in Zambia targeting the restoration of degraded land. Other projects include:

the Community Based Natural Resources Management in Zambia with the World Wildlife Fund for Nature serving as secretariat;

the Zambia Community Forests Programme implemented by Bio Carbon Partners;

Emanuel Chibesakunda of Munich Advisors Group, a business and investment consultancy firm that developed the concept and is implementing the initiative, told IPS that since the launch an important milestone for rural farmers has been the partnerships with like-minded stakeholders.
Musika Development Enterprise, a non-profit company with a mandate to stimulate and support private investment in the Zambian agricultural market with a specific focus on the lower end of these markets, has been one of these partners.

“Musika provided both technical and financial support to PAM to set up a commercial nursery in order to strengthen rural livelihoods through domestication of indigenous fruit and non-fruit trees in Zambia. This proposed intervention will enhance Musika’s efforts in testing the ‘trees on farms’ concept as a business for the smallholder economy that has the potential to generate socio-economic return on investment and enhance environmental sustainability,” Reuben Banda, Musika’s managing director, told IPS.

The nursery sells readily-available seedlings at an affordable price.

Community centred approaches
At the Global Landscapes Forum held last month in Germany, leaders, experts and indigenous communities deliberated and adopted a rights approach to sustainable landscapes management and conservation.

The forum showcased evidence from around the globe that when the authority of local communities over their forests and lands, as well as their rights, are legally recognised, deforestation rates are often reduced.

In recognition that it is this generation who can and must recover the damaged land, governments, civil society and traditional leadership, are using community-centred approaches to achieve land degradation neutrality.

A unique feature of FMNR in Zambia is the targeting of traditional leadership as an entry point.

“As custodians of vast traditional land where most of deforestation activities take place, we believe their involvement is very important in reversing the damage,” said Phiri.
He explained that the community approach has been successfully implemented in Niger and Ethiopia, with millions of hectares of forests under regeneration, while Malawi is equally making steady progress.

At a recently-held community meeting in Zambia, traditional leaders resolved to form Community Forest Committees to enforce FMNR and all related forest management activities in their chiefdoms.

But to achieve this, they requested that the government consider strengthening their authority by giving them powers of enforcement with regards to laws that govern local offences and penalties.

“As traditional leaders, we are of the view that section 19 of the Village Act on offences and penalties be strengthened to give more power to traditional leaders to sternly deal with offenders in our local jurisdiction,” said Tyson Hamamba, a representative of Chief Choongo from Southern Province.

Hamamba said this was the only way to deter rampant charcoal making and deliberate bush fires among other destructive practices leading to alarming forest and land degradation.

According to current laws, chiefs cannot issue a penal sanction against offenders. Their only role is to facilitate arrest of offenders by state police and/or other legally authorised law enforcement agencies.

For Handondo, FMNR is important for the future of the country’s forests. She credits it as being key to the lush growth of her seedling business.
“As a small scale farmer, and a seedling grower for that matter, I have found this practice cheap and easy to undertake. I have noted that we have a lot of stagnant bushes that are not growing because they are overcrowded but when we prune through the practice of FMNR, we have seen that these shrubs quickly grow into trees forming the much needed forest cover because nutrient competition is reduced.”

*Correction: This story originally stated that Handondo earned 78 dollars a month from selling crops. This has been corrected to state she earns 78 dollars a month from selling seedlings and powders.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/money-grows-on-trees-dont-uproot/feed/0Horn of Africa Drought Threatens Re-run of Famines Pasthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/horn-africa-drought-threatens-re-run-famines-past/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=horn-africa-drought-threatens-re-run-famines-past
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/horn-africa-drought-threatens-re-run-famines-past/#respondThu, 25 Jul 2019 09:44:56 +0000James Reinlhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162568Humanitarian groups and the United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa, threatening a repeat of the deadly dry spell and famine that claimed lives in Somalia and its neighbours eight years ago. The British charity Oxfam said Thursday that more than 15 million people across drought-stricken parts of Ethiopia, Kenya […]

United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa. Eight years ago famine left more than 260,000 dead. Pictured here is a child from drought-stricken southern Somalia who survived the long journey to an aid camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu during the 2011 famine. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By James ReinlUNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 2019 (IPS)

Humanitarian groups and the United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa, threatening a repeat of the deadly dry spell and famine that claimed lives in Somalia and its neighbours eight years ago.

The British charity Oxfam said Thursday that more than 15 million people across drought-stricken parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia now needed handouts and warned of a hefty death toll unless donors stumped up cash fast.

“We cannot wait until images of malnourished people and dead animals fill our television screens. We need to act now to avert disaster,” said Lydia Zigomo, Oxfam’s regional director for the Horn of Africa.

According to an Oxfam report, donors were quick to dig into the pockets for a drought in 2017, helping to stave off a famine that could have been as deadly as the 2011 dry spell that left more than 260,000 dead, and many more hungry and sick.

But while the humanitarian response was well-funded back in 2017, donor governments have not raised enough cash yet this time around, added Zigomo, a human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe.

“We learned from the collective failures of the 2011 famine that we must respond swiftly and decisively to save lives. But the international commitment to ensure that it never happens again is turning to complacency,” said Zigomo.

“Once again, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt.”

Halima Adan, Deputy Director of Save Somali Women and Children, said in the Oxfam report that the slowness of the response to the drought “mean[s] women’s burdens and vulnerability are increasing. In often hostile environments, local actors are best placed to reach those most in need, where emphasis must be on reaching women and children”.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has also sounded the alarm. Somalia’s recent April-June and October-December rainy seasons were drier than expected, worsening an arid spell that was already hitting farmers and herders across the turbulent country.

Some 5.4 million Somalis were expected to be facing food shortages by September, and 2.2 million of them would need “immediate emergency assistance” UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch warned last month.

Donors had only handed over one fifth of the 711 million dollars that was requested in an appeal in May, added Baloch.

“The latest drought comes just as the country was starting to recover from a drought in 2016 to 2017 that led to the displacement inside Somalia of over a million people,” Baloch told reporters in Geneva.

“Many remain in a protracted state of displacement.”

Last month, the European Union launched a 3.2 million euro scheme to manage water sources and agriculture and lessen the impact of drought, in cooperation with officials in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and the northern breakaway region of Somaliland.

“Water and land are critical resources for the Somali economy and people’s livelihoods but are also extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change,” said EU diplomat Hjordis D’Agostino Ogendo.

“While access to water needs to increase, needed infrastructures are to be designed and managed in a sustainable way.”

Somalia has seen little but drought, famine and conflict since dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991. The country’s weak, U.N.-backed government struggles to assert control over poor, rural areas under the Islamist militant group al Shabaab.

Droughts are getting worse globally, according to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). By 2025, some 1.8 billion people will experience serious water shortages, and two thirds of the world will be “water-stressed”.

Though droughts are complex and develop slowly, they cause more deaths than cyclones, earthquakes and other types of natural disaster, the UNCCD warns. By 2045, droughts will have forced as many as 135 million people from their homes.

“With climate change amplifying the frequency and intensity of sudden disasters … and contributing to more gradual environmental phenomena, such as drought and rising sea levels, it is expected to drive even more displacement in the future,” added Baloch.

But U.N. experts say there is hope. By managing water sources, forests, livestock and farming, soil erosion can be reduced and degraded land can be revived, a process that could also help tackle climate change.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/horn-africa-drought-threatens-re-run-famines-past/feed/0Avoiding the Mistakes of the Asian Green Revolution in Africahttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/avoid-the-mistakes-of-the-asian-green-revolution-africa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=avoid-the-mistakes-of-the-asian-green-revolution-africa
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/avoid-the-mistakes-of-the-asian-green-revolution-africa/#commentsThu, 11 Jul 2019 13:09:13 +0000Isaiah Esipisuhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162379Research scientists are studying groundwater resources in three African countries in order to understand the renewability of the source and how people can use it sustainably towards a green revolution in Africa. “We don’t want to repeat some of the mistakes during the green revolution that has taken place in Asia, where people opted to […]

Richard Taylor, a Professor of Hydrogeology from the University College London (UCL) (far left) is the principal investigator in a project to study groundwater resources to understand more how to use the resource to alleviate poverty. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah EsipisuDODOMA, Tanzania, Jul 11 2019 (IPS)

Research scientists are studying groundwater resources in three African countries in order to understand the renewability of the source and how people can use it sustainably towards a green revolution in Africa.

“We don’t want to repeat some of the mistakes during the green revolution that has taken place in Asia, where people opted to use groundwater, then groundwater was overused and we ended up with a problem of sustainability,” said Richard Taylor, the principal investigator and a professor of Hydrogeology from the University College London (UCL).

Through a project known as Groundwater Futures in Sub-Saharan Africa (GroFutures), a team of 40 scientists from Africa and abroad have teamed up to develop a scientific basis and participatory management processes by which groundwater resources can be used sustainably for poverty alleviation.

Though the study is still ongoing, scientists can now tell how and when different major aquifers recharge, how they respond to different climatic shocks and extremes, and they are already looking for appropriate ways of boosting groundwater recharge for more sustainability.

“Our focus is on Tanzania, Ethiopia and Niger,” said Taylor. “These are three strategic laboratories in tropical Africa where we are expecting rapid development of agriculture and the increased need to irrigate,” he told IPS.

In Tanzania, scientists from UCL in collaboration with their colleagues from the local Sokoine University of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and the WamiRuvu Basin Water Board, have been studying the Makutapora well field, which is the only source of water for the country’s capital city – Dodoma.

“This is demand-driven research because we have previously had conflicting data about the actual yield of this well field,” said Catherine Kongola, a government official who heads and manages a sub section of the WamiRuvu Basin in Central Tanzania. The WamiRuvu Basin comprises the country’s two major rivers of Wami and Ruvi and covers almost 70,000 square kilometres.

She notes that scientists are using modern techniques to study the behaviour of groundwater in relation to climate shocks and also human impact, as well as the quality of the water in different locations of the basin.

“Groundwater has always been regarded as a hidden resource. But using science, we can now understand how it behaves, and this will help with the formulation of appropriate policies for sustainability in the future,” she told IPS.

According to Rajiv Shah, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, boosting irrigation is key to improving agricultural productivity in Africa.

“In each of the areas where we are working, people are already looking at groundwater as a key way of improving household income and livelihoods, but also improving food security, so that people are less dependent on imported food,” said Taylor. “But the big question is; where does the water come from?”

Since the 1960s, during the green revolution in Asia, India relied heavily on groundwater for irrigation, particularly on rice and wheat, in order to feed the growing population. But today, depletion of the groundwater in the country has become a national crisis, and it is primarily attributed to heavy abstraction for irrigation.

The depletion crisis remains a major challenge in many other places on the globe, including the United States and China where intensive agriculture is practiced.

“It is based on such experiences that we are working towards reducing uncertainty in the renewability and quantity of accessible groundwater to meet future demands for food, water and environmental services, while at the same time promoting inclusion of poor people’s voices in decision-making processes on groundwater development pathways,” said Taylor.

After a few years of intensive research in Tanzania’s Makutapora well field, scientists have discovered that the well field—which is found in an area mainly characterised by seasonal rivers, vegetation such as acacia shrubs, cactus trees, baobab and others that thrive in dry areas—can only be recharged during extreme floods that can also destroy agricultural crops and even property.

“By the end of the year 2015, we installed river stage gauges to record the amount of water in the streams. Through this, we can monitor an hourly resolution of the river flow and how the water flow is linked to groundwater recharge,” Dr David Seddon, a research scientist whose PhD thesis was based on the Makutapora well field, told IPS.

Taylor explains that Makutapora is known for having the longest-known groundwater level record in sub-Saharan Africa.

“A study of the well field over the past 60 years reveals that recharge sustaining the daily pumping of water for use in the city occurs episodically and depends on heavy seasonal rainfall associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation,” Taylor said.

According to Lister Kongola, a retired hydrologist who worked for the government from 1977 to 2012, the demand for water in the nearby capital city of Dodoma has been rising over the years, from 20 million litres in the 1970s, to 30 million litres in the 1980s and to the current 61 million litres.

“With most government offices now relocating from Dar Es Salaam to Dodoma, the establishment of the University of Dodoma, other institutions of higher learning and health institutions, and the emergence of several hotels in the city, the demand is likely going to double in the coming few years,” Kongola told IPS.

The good news, however, is that seasons with El Niño kind of rainfall are predictable. “By anticipating these events, we can seek to amplify them through minimal but strategic engineering interventions that might allow us to actually increase replenishment of the well-field,” said Taylor.

According to Professor Nuhu Hatibu, the East African head of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, irrigation has been the ‘magic’ bullet for improving agricultural productivity all over the world, and “that is exactly what Africa needs to achieve a green revolution.”

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/avoid-the-mistakes-of-the-asian-green-revolution-africa/feed/1Drought, Disease and War Hit Global Agriculture, Says U.N.http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/drought-disease-war-hit-global-agriculture-says-u-n/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=drought-disease-war-hit-global-agriculture-says-u-n
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/drought-disease-war-hit-global-agriculture-says-u-n/#respondThu, 11 Jul 2019 07:32:52 +0000James Reinlhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162375The United Nations has warned of drought, disease and war preventing farmers from producing enough food for millions of people across Africa and other regions, leading to the need for major aid operations. A report called the Crop Prospects and Food Situation by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that shortages of grain and […]

The United Nations has warned that drought, disease and war are preventing farmers from producing enough food for millions of people across Africa and other regions.Recurring droughts have destroyed most harvests in the Sahel. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS

By James ReinlUNITED NATIONS, Jul 11 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations has warned of drought, disease and war preventing farmers from producing enough food for millions of people across Africa and other regions, leading to the need for major aid operations.

Southern Africa has experienced both dry spells and rainfall damage from Cyclone Idai, which made landfall in Mozambique on Mar. 14. The storm caused “agricultural production shortfalls” and big “increases in cereal import needs,” added Haq.

Farmers in Zimbabwe and Zambia have seen harvests decline this year. Some three million people faced shortages at the start of 2019, but food price spikes there will likely push that number upwards in the coming months, researchers say.

In eastern Africa, crop yields have dropped in Somalia, Kenya and Sudan due to “severe dryness”, added Haq.

According to the FAO, life for rural herders in Kassala State, in eastern Sudan, has been upended by a drought that has forced them to move livestock away from traditional grazing routes in pursuit of greener pastures.

“Life would be so hard if our livestock died. We wouldn’t have food or milk for the children,” Khalda Mohammed Ibrahim, a farmer near Aroma, in Kassala State, told FAO. “When it is dry, I am afraid the animals will starve — and then we will too.”

In Asia, low yields of wheat and barley outputs are raising concerns in North Korea, where dry spells, heatwaves and flooding have led to what has been called the worst harvests the hermit dictatorship has seen in a decade, the report said.

More than 10 million North Koreans — or 40 percent of the country’s population — are short of food or require aid handouts, the U.N.’s Rome-based agency for agriculture said in its 42-page study.

FAO researchers also addressed the spread of a deadly pig disease in China that has disrupted the world’s biggest pork market and is one of the major risks to a well-supplied global agricultural sector.

China is grappling with African swine fever, which has spread across much of the country this past year. There is no cure or vaccine for the disease, often fatal for pigs although harmless for humans.

By the middle of June, more than 1.1 million pigs had died or been culled. The bug has also been reported in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, North Korea and Laos, affecting millions of pigs and threatening farmers’ livelihoods.

The FAO forecast a five percent fall in Chinese pork output this year, while imports were predicted to rise to almost two million tonnes from an average 1.6 million tonnes per year from 2016 to 2018.

Conflict is another worry, the FAO said. While Syria and Yemen have seen “generally conducive weather conditions for crops”, fighting between government forces, rebels and other groups in both countries has ravaged agriculture.

Violence in Yemen has triggered what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 3.3 million people displaced and 24.1 million — more than two-thirds of the population — in need of aid.

Last month, the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) announced a “partial suspension” of aid affecting 850,000 people in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, saying the Houthi rebels that run the city were diverting food from the needy.

Likewise, in Africa, simmering conflicts in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan have caused a “dire food security situation”. In South Sudan, seven million people do not have enough food.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/drought-disease-war-hit-global-agriculture-says-u-n/feed/0Why Environmental and Humanitarian Action Must Be Linkedhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/environmental-humanitarian-action-must-linked/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=environmental-humanitarian-action-must-linked
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/environmental-humanitarian-action-must-linked/#commentsThu, 04 Jul 2019 07:31:45 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162268Environmental and humanitarian action is often understood as two different sectors. However, the lack of awareness regarding its intersections could lead to further long-term devastation. With the growing number of crises around the world, humanitarian actors are essential. They are often the first responders during and after a crisis, providing urgent, life-saving assistance. However, there […]

Environmental and humanitarian action is often understood as two different sectors. However, the lack of awareness regarding its intersections could lead to further long-term devastation.

With the growing number of crises around the world, humanitarian actors are essential. They are often the first responders during and after a crisis, providing urgent, life-saving assistance.

However, there is an increasing need for such actors to pay attention to long-term implications of operations, particularly with regards to the environment.

“[The environment] is not integrated into humanitarian programming…while we are very clear that the humanitarian focus is life-saving assistance, we also understand that this cannot be done if you are compromising of the lives of future generations or even the current generation in the long-term,” head of the Joint Environment Unit (JEU) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Emilia Wahlstrom, told IPS.

“Environmental degradation is causing humanitarian crises, and humanitarian crises are exacerbating areas that are already under a lot of strain.”

World Agroforestry Centre’s head of programme development Cathy Watson echoed similar sentiments to IPS, stating: “There is a paradigm that in emergencies you are saving lives and you don’t have time to think about these other things. The problem with that paradigm is pretty soon it settles down and then you really have to think about what sustains their lives and that is usually the natural environment. So if that’s not taken care of, you can end up having an even worse situation.”

“Environmental degradation is causing humanitarian crises, and humanitarian crises are exacerbating areas that are already under a lot of strain,” she added.

According to a 2014 study by JEU, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was closely linked with deforestation and desertification due to humanitarian operations.

Such deforestation was caused by the need for firewood for cooking and dry bricks for construction, and humanitarian operations exacerbated the problem as there was an unprecedented demand for construction.

The UNEP estimated that brick-making kilns were burning 52,000 trees every year.

Already, worsening land degradation caused by human activities as a whole is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of the world’s population.

According to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), 60 percent of all ecosystem services are degraded. Reduced ecosystem functions makes regions more prone to extreme weather events such as flood and landslides as well as further conflict and insecurity.

Approximately 40 percent of all intrastate conflicts in the past 60 years are linked to natural resources.

Most recently, the influx of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh has put a strain on environmental resources. According to the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), over 4,000 acres of hills and forests were cut down to make temporary shelters, facilities, and cooking fuel in Ukhia and Teknaf of Cox’s Bazaar for the 1.5 million refugee population.

Such deforestation has increased the risk of landslides and tensions between host and refugee communities are escalating.

However, refugees shouldn’t be to blame, Watson noted.

“Refugees are just doing what they have to do to get by but we can take a much more ecological approach and really think about how we’re going to maintain the ecosystems that sustains these refugees, provide water, provide fertile soil,and wood to cook,” she said.

Since the average time a refugee remains displaced can now be up to 26 years, the need for a more ecological approach is necessary.

“There’s plenty of time to really build up the environmental well being of the area so that people can also feel good, live well, have shade, have fruit, have clean water….you’re not going to grow food for very long if you cut all the trees down,” Watson told IPS.

Both Watson and Wahlstrom highlighted the importance for humanitarian actors to use available guidelines, tools, and resources ensure their operations aid populations in the long-term.

For instance, the Sphere Handbook, first piloted in 1998, provides minimum standards for humanitarian response including the need to integrate environmental impact assessments in all shelter and settlement planning, restore the ecological value of settlements during and after use, and opt for sustainable materials and techniques that do not deplete natural resources.

“We know what to do, everyone knows what to do. But we are not doing it…the leaders and decision makers should change the way we do our business,” Wahlstrom said.

Watson made similar comments, stating: “There are so many good guidelines, but theres not been a lot of enforcement or awareness of ecological thinking…if you really think about how to manage the landscape and map it out and work out where you’re going to get fuel from, what areas must be protected because of water—you can build areas that are much more resilient and productive.”

While some humanitarian agencies have already begun to address environmental concerns, Wahlstrom pointed to the need for both environmental and humanitarian actors to also work together.

“Because of the life-saving mandate and the very urgent elements of [the humanitarian sector’s] work, environmental actors and development actors are a bit wary to get involved because they feel like it is not their place,” she told IPS.

“The planet is burning, and environmental actors—we no longer have the privilege of sitting in our scientific community and working on our reports. We have to go out there and we have to spread the message,” Wahlstrom added.

The Environmental and Humanitarian Action Network (EHA) hopes to do just that. Though it is an informal network, the EHA brings together humanitarian and environmental experts to share guidance, good practices, and policies to mitigate the environmental impacts of humanitarian operations.

“Time is running out. We really cannot afford to not collaborate…we are stronger together and together we can have a better response and be better prepared,” Wahlstrom said.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/environmental-humanitarian-action-must-linked/feed/1Chilean Schools Recycle Greywater to Combat Droughthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/chilean-schools-recycle-greywater-combat-drought/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chilean-schools-recycle-greywater-combat-drought
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/chilean-schools-recycle-greywater-combat-drought/#respondThu, 04 Jul 2019 05:11:16 +0000Orlando Milesihttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162283Children from the neighboring municipalities of Ovalle and Río Hurtado in northern Chile are harvesting rain and recycling greywater in their schools to irrigate fruit trees and vegetable gardens, in an initiative aimed at combating the shortage of water in this semi-arid region. And other youngsters who are completing their education at a local polytechnic […]

The principal of the Samo Alto rural school, Omar Santander, shows organic tomatoes in the greenhouse built by teachers, students and their families, who raise the crops irrigated with rainwater or recycled water in Coquimbo, a region of northern Chile where rainfall is scarce. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando MilesiOVALLE, Chile, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

Children from the neighboring municipalities of Ovalle and Río Hurtado in northern Chile are harvesting rain and recycling greywater in their schools to irrigate fruit trees and vegetable gardens, in an initiative aimed at combating the shortage of water in this semi-arid region.

And other youngsters who are completing their education at a local polytechnic high school built a filter that will optimise the reuse and harvesting of water.

“The care of water has to start with the children,” Alejandra Rodríguez, who has a son who attends the school in Samo Alto, a rural village on the slopes of the Andes Mountains in Río Hurtado, a small municipality of about 4,000 inhabitants in the Coquimbo region, told IPS.

“My son brought me a tomato he harvested, to use the seeds. For them, the harvest is the prize. He planted his garden next to the house and it was very exciting,” said Maritza Vega, a teacher at the school, which has 77 students ranging in age from four to 15.

The principal of the school, Omar Santander, told IPS during a tour of rural schools in the area involved in the project that “the Hurtado River (which gives the municipality its name) was traditionally generous, but today it only has enough water for us to alternate the crops that are irrigated, every few days. People fight over watering rights.”

The Samo Alto school collects rainwater and recycles water after different uses. “The water is then sent to a double filter,” he explained, pointing out that they have a pond that holds 5,000 liters.

The monthly water bill is much lower, but Santander believes that the most important thing “is the awareness it has generated in the children.”

“There used to be water here, and the adults’ habits come from back then. The students help raise awareness in their families. We want the environmental dimension to be a tool for life,” he said.

For Admalén Flores, a 13-year-old student, “the tomatoes you harvest are tastier and better,” while Alexandra Honores, also 13, said “my grandfather now reuses water.”

El Guindo primary school, located 10 kilometers from the city of Ovalle, the municipal seat, in a town known as a hotspot for drug sales, performed poorly in tests until three years ago.

At that time, the principal, Patricio Bórquez, and the science teacher, Gisela Jaime, launched a process of greywater recovery. They also planted trees and native species of plants to adapt to the dry environment of the municipality of 111,000 inhabitants, located about 400 kilometers north of Santiago.

Four students, ages 13 and 14, talk to IPS about how the water reuse project has made them aware of the importance of taking care of water in the semi-arid territory where they live, in a classroom at the rural school of El Guindo, in the municipality of Ovalle, Chile. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

“The project was born because there was no vegetation,” said the teacher. Today they recover 8,000 litres of water a month. “Teaching care for the environment provides a life skill,” said Bórquez.

“Our school had the stigma of being in a place rife with drug addiction. Today in Ovalle we are known as the school with the most programs. We placed third in science,” she said.

Jaime described the experience as “gratifying” because it has offered “tools to grow and create awareness among children and the entire community about the importance of caring for water and other resources.”

Geographer Nicolás Schneider, founder of the “Un Alto en el Desierto” Foundation, told IPS that his non-governmental organisation estimates that one million litres of greywater have been recovered after eight years of work with rural schools in Ovalle.

In this arid municipality with variable rainfall, “only 37.6 mm of rainwater fell in 2018 – well below the normal average for the 1981-2010 period of 105.9 mm,” Catalina Cortés, an expert with Chile’s meteorology institute, told IPS from Santiago.

Schneider describes the water situation as critical in the Coquimbo region, which is on the southern border of the Atacama Desert and where 90 percent of the territory is eroded and degraded.

“Due to climate change, it is raining less and less and when it does, the rainfall is very concentrated. Both the lack of rain and the concentration of rainfall cause serious damage to the local population,” she said.

Innovative recycling filter

With guidance from their teachers, students at the Ovalle polytechnic high school built a filtration system devised by Eduardo Leiva, a professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the Catholic University. The filter seeks to raise the technical standard with which greywater is purified.

Duan Urqueta, 17, a fourth-year electronics student at the Ovalle polytechnic high school, describes the award-winning greywater filter he helped to build. Initially, units will be installed in eight rural schools in this municipality in northern Chile. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The prototype recycles the greywater from the bathrooms used by the 1,200 students at the polytechnic high school. This water is used to irrigate three areas with 48 different species of trees. Similar filters will be installed in eight rural schools in Ovalle.

The quality of the recovered water will improve due to the filter built thanks to a project by the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness of the regional government of Coquimbo, with the participation of the Catholic University, the “Un Alto en el Desierto” Foundation, and the Ovalle polytechnic high school.

The prototype was built by 18 students and eight teachers of mechanics, industrial assembly, electronics, electricity and technical drawing, and includes two 1,000-litre ponds.

The primary pond holds water piped from the bathroom sinks by gravity which is then pumped to a filter consisting of three columns measuring 0.35 meters high and 0.40 meters in diameter.

“The filter material in each column…can be activated charcoal, sand or gravel,” said Hernán Toro, the head teacher of industrial assembly.

Toro told IPS that “the prototype has a column with zeolite and two columns of activated charcoal. The columns are mounted on a metal structure 2.60 meters high.”

View of the water cleaning filter designed at the Ovalle polytechnic high school and built by a group of teachers and students with funding from the government of the region of Coquimbo, in northern Chile. Each unit costs 2,170 dollars and it will promote water recycling in the schools in the semi-arid municipality. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The water is pumped from the pond to the filter’s highest column, passes through the filter material and by gravity runs sequentially through the other columns. Finally, the water is piped into the secondary pond and by means of another electric pump it reaches the irrigation system.

Duan Urqueta, a 17-year-old electronics student, told IPS that they took soil and water samples in seven towns in Ovalle and “we used the worst water to test the filter that is made here at the high school with recyclable materials.”

In 2018, “we won first place with the filter at the Science Fair in La Serena, the capital of the region of Coquimbo,” he said proudly.

Pablo Cortés, a 17-year-old student of industrial assembly, said the project “changed me as a person.”

Toro said the experience “has been enriching and has had a strong social impact. We are sowing the seeds of ecological awareness in the students.”

“It’s a programme that offers learning, service, and assistance to the community. Everyone learns. We have seen people moved to the point of tears in their local communities,” the teacher said.

Now they are going to include solar panels in the project, which will cut energy costs, while they already have an automation system to discharge water, which legally can only be stored for a short time.

Eight schools, including the ones in Samo Alto and El Guindo, are waiting for the new filters, which cost 2,170 dollars per unit.

Schneider believes, however, that at the macro level “water recycling is insufficient” to combat the lack of water in this semi-arid zone. And he goes further, saying “there is an absence of instruments for territorial planning or management of watersheds.”

“Under the current water regulatory framework, the export agribusiness, mainly of fruit, has taken over the valleys, concentrating water use…and the government turns a blind eye,” he complained.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/chilean-schools-recycle-greywater-combat-drought/feed/0Food From Thoughthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/food-from-thought/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=food-from-thought
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/food-from-thought/#respondTue, 02 Jul 2019 10:52:58 +0000Tharanga Yakupitiyagehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162258As the weather continues to change and land becomes degraded, the socio-economic security implications are vast. In an effort to tackle these issues, climate-smart agriculture is quickly gaining traction around the world. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), 12 million hectares of productive land become barren every year due to desertification […]

Ndomi Magareth, sows bean seeds on her small piece of land in Njombe a small town in the coastal Littoral Region of Cameroon. Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance is a consortium of 30 bean-producing countries in Africa and its improved bean varieties has helped transition the legume from a subsistence crop to a modern commodity. Credit: Monde Kingsley Nfor/IPS

By Tharanga YakupitiyageUNITED NATIONS, Jul 2 2019 (IPS)

As the weather continues to change and land becomes degraded, the socio-economic security implications are vast. In an effort to tackle these issues, climate-smart agriculture is quickly gaining traction around the world.

Not only is this an economic blow to almost 80 percent of the world’s poor people who rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, but hunger levels are also already rising globally.

Such challenges will only be compounded as we must increased food production by 70 percent by 2050 in order to feed the entire world population.

The need for sustainable, climate-smart agriculture is thus clear.

One practice that is gaining momentum is the development of improved, resilient crop varieties which help ensure both food and economic security.

“In light of changing rainfall patterns where the old varieties which are drought-susceptible can no longer be produced under drought conditions, the new varieties which are developed for resilience have made a complete difference by bringing more beans on the table for food security as well as more beans for the market to bring income to the farmers,” one of Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA)’s bean breeders Rowland Chirwa told IPS.

“The community of scientists need to connect with the entrepreneurs and people that are investing in the future here in Africa and to work together to improve crops, create jobs, create markets and not sit back as scientists. They need to engage with the business,” she said.

From Theory to Practice

In collaboration with the University of Bern, the Syngenta Foundation has been working to improve Eragrostis tef, commonly known as teff—one of the most important cereals in Ethiopia where over 80 percent of the population live in rural areas.

The seeds have high protein levels and are much better adapted to drought conditions which is an increasingly common experience in the East African nation.

However, the teff plant produces low yields and harvests are not keeping pace with Ethiopia’s increasing population.

With modern genetics and improved farming methods, the project aims to increase yields, putting money into farmers’ pockets.

Demand and access to markets is also essential, Anthony noted.

“Designing a new variety is no different to designing anything somebody is going to buy. It involves understanding the marketplace, and who wants to grow it, use it, eat it,” she told IPS.

“The way to address some of the problems and challenges of agricultural sustainability in Africa is about encouraging markets to flourish that drive opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship.We fundamentally believe in market-based approaches as a way of trying to meet the Sustainable Goals, finding a business rationale where everybody wins and it keeps going,” Anthony added.

Similarly, PABRA is a consortium of 30 bean-producing countries in Africa and its improved bean varieties has helped transition the legume from a subsistence crop to a modern commodity.

Beans are among the most consumed and widely grown legume in Africa, taking up over 6 million hectares of land. Eastern Africa sees the highest consumption of beans with people eating as much as 50-60 kilograms every year.

However, one study found that without any adaptation strategies, the yields and nutritional value of common beans will dramatically decline by 2050.

“We have been following more of a preemptive breeding approach where we know the climate is changing and at the same time the needs of the people we are trying to provide products with are also changing,” bean breeder Clare Mugisha Mukankusi told IPS.

Chirwa echoed similar sentiments, stating: “We look at regionally in Africa and see which are the major market classes we can focus on and look at the capacity of our national partners…and develop varieties that are responsive to the environmental needs, human consumption needs, and market demand needs using a Demand Led Breeding (DLB) approach.”

In Rwanda, improved bean varieties increased yields by 53 percent and household revenue by 50 dollars. Without the improved beans, 16 percent more households would have been food-insecure, PABRA found.

In addition to designing nutritional legumes that are heat-tolerant and disease-resistant, Mukankusi also highlighted the need to address the entire value chain to ensure there is productivity at the farm level.

This means promoting sustainable crop management practices such as intercropping, which involves growing two or more crops alongside each other, and crop rotation which can help increase soil fertility.

Anthony pointed to the importance of education in demand-led approaches and the business of plant breeding as the Syngenta Foundation in partnership with the Australian Centre for International Agriculture and the Crawford Fund work closely with African Centre for Crop Improvement in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and Uganda so that local scientists can take the lead.

“Now we have a community of breeders who are trying to do this to really make an impact,” she said.

In light of environmental challenges, the world has already started to see a shift in consumption patterns as plant-based foods gain popularity. Crop breeding may therefore be more essential than ever.

“If we are going to sustain the supply, we cannot sit back but we have to keep pace with the changes. The breeding has to be there and responsive to current and future demands,” Chirwa said.